saccade.com writes: Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood is questioning if the current practice of paying researchers bounties for the software vulnerabilities they find is really improving over-all security. He notes how the Heartbleed bug serves as a counter example to "Linus's Law" that "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

...If you want to find bugs in your code, in your website, in your app, you do it the old fashioned way: by paying for them. You buy the eyeballs.

While I applaud any effort to make things more secure, and I completely agree that security is a battle we should be fighting on multiple fronts, both commercial and non-commercial, I am uneasy about some aspects of paying for bugs becoming the new normal. What are we incentivizing, exactly?

Rep. Lofgren asked me to brief her and a few Representatives on the NSA. She said that the NSA wasn't forthcoming about their activities, and they wanted me — as someone with access to the Snowden documents — to explain to them what the NSA was doing. Of course I'm not going to give details on the meeting, except to say that it was candid and interesting. And that it's extremely freaky that Congress has such a difficult time getting information out of the NSA that they have to ask me. I really want oversight to work better in this country.

Ironic: Even though the contents of top-secret, unpublished documents was discussed, the meeting was held in a regular conference room, because Bruce didn't have the necessary security clearance to enter a secure government facility.Link to Original Source

saccade.com writes: Ever wonder how Google packed all of the Google Glass functionality into a slender eyeglass frame? Find out by checking out this teardown by Scott Torborg and Star Simpson. Goodies found inside include proximity, light and inertial sensors, sound transducers, a TI OMAP CPU, flash, RAM, camera and tiny projection display.

saccade.com writes: "Telehack.com has meticulously re-created the Internet as it appeared to a command line user over a quarter century ago. Drawing on material from Jason Scott'sTextFiles.com, the text-only world of the 1980's appears right in your browser.

If you want to show somebody what the Arpanet looked like (you didn't call it the "Internet" until the late '80s) this is it.

Using the "finger" command and seeing familiar names from decades ago (some, sadly, ghosts now) sends a chill down your spine."Link to Original Source

saccade.com writes: Ellen Degeneres was forced to apologize to Apple for a spoof ad she recently aired on her show. Ironically, the apology is attracting far more attention to the spoof than if Apple simply kept quiet about it.Link to Original Source

saccade.com writes: "The Register and several other outlets are reporting that the missing tapes of the first manned lunar landing may have been found at a storage facility in Perth, Australia. If found, these could have much clearer pictures than the recordings we currently have that were downsampled for TV broadcast. We don't have pictures yet, though: 'Whether the world will finally enjoy high-quality pics of Aldrin and Armstrong strolling the Moon's surface remains to be seen. When NASA coughed to having lost the original tapes, John Sarkissian of the Parkes Observatory noted that even if a machine could be found to replay them, they would be "so old and fragile, it's not certain they could even be played.'"Link to Original Source

saccade.com writes: "I've recently built a prototype electronic gadget, and I'd like to show it to my folks when I fly to visit them over the July 4th holiday. After the Star Simpson fiasco, I'm a little concerned about getting a prototype with exposed batteries and wires through the TSA, or having it confiscated from my checked luggage. Only a moron would confuse my prototype with an explosive device, but, well, we are dealing with the TSA.
I'd like to hear your experiences taking handmade electronic gadgets through airport security. No big deal, or major hassle?"

A new class of innovators, they're
going beyond merely copying western designs to producing electronic "mash-ups" to create new products. Bootstrapped on small amounts of capitol, they range from
shops of just a few people to a few hundred. They rapidly create new products, and use
an "open source" style design community where design ideas and component lists are shared."Link to Original Source

saccade.com writes: "Electronics retailer Circuit City is unable to find a buyer, and is shutting down it's remaining 567 US retail stores. The 30,000 employees will lose there jobs.
The chain was trying to find a buyer, but with credit markets tight they were unable to secure a deal. Certain stores will begin
close-out sales as early as Saturday."Link to Original Source

saccade.com writes: "TechCrunch is reporting
that Verizon's "Open
Network" is not really so open. Reporter Erick Schonfeld
"...asked Verizon whether any of the new apps developed for
the bring-your-own devices would also be available to its existing
customers who bought their phones through Verizon. The answer
for now is, 'No.' Although a spokesperson tells me that they are
looking into it. Unless it figures that out, Verizon is not really
building an open network. It is building a two-tiered network:
One for its preferred customers who play by its rules (i.e., its
current 64 million subscribers), and one for the rabble not satisfied
with its choice of phones and apps.

...If there is no crossover capability on the apps, then the
"open" part of Verizon's network will be barren.
The appeal of developing an open app for Verizon would be to gain
access to those 64 million subscribers. Nobody is going to go
through the trouble of creating apps just for the handful of people
who want a CDMA phone that Verizon does not already sell. Making
the whole open network even less appealing will be the fact that
these phones are not likely to be subsidized by Verizon, and thus
far more expensive.""Link to Original Source

DARPA is implanting computer chips in moths while still in
the pupa stage. The moth grows around the the chip and its nervous
system can be controlled by a remote control.

The project is called the Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical
Systems (HI-MEMS) and it also includes outfitting other insects
with miniscule sensors and a wireless transmitter which could
send data from places inaccessible to humans.

Ultimately, the moth will
be able to land in enemy camps in remote location unobserved,
beaming video and other information back via what its developers
refer to as a reliable tissue-machine interface."